In 1886 a club of Rockefellers, Morgans and Vanderbilts paid $125,000 for Jekyll Island off Georgia and kept it as a private winter retreat for 56 years; in 1947 the state condemned the island, took it for $675,000, and has run it as a state park ever since

In 1904, Munsey's Magazine surveyed the private playgrounds of America's rich and awa...